If you follow me on Twitter –which you should– I screamed about my salad-making efforts through some enjoyable hours.

As I said years ago in this blog post, media noche is the last meal of the year, eaten near midnight to welcome the next. In the Philippines, media noche isn’t complete without holiday ham, queso de bola, salads, and 12 different kinds of fruit. Maybe more. We definitely have at least 14 kinds of fruit for extra extra luck.

This Year’s Menu

This year’s menu was delicious, but also took a hilariously long time to prepare. The lemongrass chicken, in particular, takes an hour to roast. My mom roasted 2. (She gave the other one to our neighbor).

By the time we started eating, our media noche has turned into the first meal of the new year.

Fiesta Ham

Queso de Bola with Bread

Pork Liempo with Corncobs and Baby Potatoes

Lemongrass Roast Chicken

Carbonara Pasta

Pesto Pasta

Macaroni and Potato Salad

Two Bowls of Fruit (we have a third one, but it wouldn’t fit the table)

Observe and salivate???

It’s so hard to make cheese and plain white bread photogenic. Please appreciate the Paris serving plate. We got it from… Paris…

I just want to give a shoutout to the people who invented baby potatoes, if indeed they were invented. If not, thank you Lord. Another great creation.

I haven’t actually tasted the pork liempo, even until now. I’ve been way too full. Hmm.

I relied 500% on my S8’s Food photo setting. Too much blur?

Here’s the chicken and highlight of my mom’s New Year culinary experiments. Thanks to my sister for bringing in a nice giant full chicken.

The inside was stuffed with lemongrass (tanglad); the rest was rubbed and marinaded with soy sauce, kalamansi and other secret ingredients I wasn’t paying attention to. As mentioned, it was broiled for an hour at 350 F.

My brother said that the meat of it was very tender. A+, delicious, I would totally recommend my mom’s cooking. ❤

Fun fact: the lemongrass used is super fresh. Fresh as in Ate Risa just cut stalks of them from the empty lot down the road.

Is carbonara not the best, most inoffensive pasta in the world? White sauce > Red sauce forever. Also, I think they just used prepared sauce for this (thanks Clara Ole!).

I suppose the pesto is cooler because my mom makes the sauce herself. You know, from basil and stuff.

I feel like the dessert is the true gem of the dinner, mostly because I prepared them myself. Like 100% my efforts only. Maybe 95%.

This here is potato salad, the best non-dessert dessert you’ll ever have. I ate the leftovers just now for lunch. It’s very filling.

Not-a-recipe recipe for my mom’s potato salad:

A bunch of potatoes, cubed

A couple of carrots, cubed

A can of fruit cocktail, drained

A small can of diced pineapple, drained

Chicken breast, shreddedPicked relish, diced

A whole onion, diced

Mayonnaise

Some sugar

Some himalayan salt

Some cheese

Just mix them all together and watch the magic happen.

And then there’s the fruit salad, which I don’t eat, but still spent a good chunk of my afternoon making.

My brother finds it okay, as chief taste-tester, so I can’t really ask for more. Also this fruit salad actually takes zero effort to make, just a lot of mixing.

Not-a-recipe recipe for my mom’s fruit salad:

A giant can of fruit cocktail, drained

White kaong

Fresh coconut shreds

Can of cream and condensed milk

Some cheese

That’s it!!!

Here’s the spread again because I can’t get over the fact that I actually got a flatlay:

I’ve been meaning to write more the last couple of days, but battling my room (it’s biannual cleaning time) is keeping me busy. I’ve also watched four out of the eight MMFF offerings, so watch out in the tag for more movie reviews!

Should I tag this blog post as art? Cooking is an art right? Food photography?